Qualitative Consumer Research Price: Meanings and Significance

Qualitative Consumer Research
Price: Meanings and Significance

Mohammadali Zolfagharian, Fei L. Weisstein, A. Fuat Fırat,
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PRICE: MEANINGS AND
SIGNIFICANCE
Mohammadali Zolfagharian, Fei L. Weisstein and

A. Fuat Fırat
ABSTRACT
Purpose Price has conventionally been viewed as an indicator of either

monetary sacrifice or product quality. Previous studies on price are preoccu-
pied with reactions and perceptions of consumers upon encountering price
information. Research with explicit discussion of the meanings of price to
consumers is rare. The purpose of the current research is to revisit the mean-
ing of price to consumers in general, the deeper meanings that price has for
people, and the conventional meanings that it carries.
Methodology/approach Three focus groups and nine in-depth interviews
were conducted. A total of 36 individuals participated in the study.
Findings Our findings suggest that the notion of price is multifaceted. In
addition to the conventional meanings, price can be related to how consumers
perceive themselves and/or their lives in the socioeconomic order they inhabit.
Practical implications Managerially, exploring the meanings of price
could yield further productive results. As the implications of price regarding
how consumers feel about themselves are revealed, pricing strategies that
yield greater satisfaction for consumers can be discovered and implemented.
Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, research with an explicit
focus on the meaning of price for adult consumers is rare. By providing
Qualitative Consumer Research

Review of Marketing Research, Volume 14, 161 174
Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 1548-6435/doi:10.1108/S1548-643520170000014011
161
162 MOHAMMADALI ZOLFAGHARIAN ET AL.
deeper insights into what price truly means to consumers, this study contri-
butes to a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of price.
Keywords: Price; sacrifice; quality; obtainability; affordability
What is price? When is it significant? A most interesting current fact about

“price” may be that we know very little about it. This is normal whenever con-
structs are taken for granted in the disciplines we inhabit, and price has had
this predicament. It is one of those concepts that everyone assumes is clearly
understood. We all know what price is; it is the amount of money we have to
sacrifice for something we want to purchase. However, price may or may not
reflect the perceived worth of the object a consumer considers purchasing.
Studies suggest that consumers may hold more than one interpretation of the
concept. These interpretations may coexist, conflict, and subsequently influence
the consumer decision-making process (Leavitt, 1954).
Economic and marketing literature often reaches different conclusions in
terms of how consumers perceive and respond to prices. Neoclassical econo-
mists assume that consumers behave rationally and thereby generally act to
maximize utility. Price is often used as the key determining factor in consumer
purchase decisions. Marketing scholars, on the other hand, address consumer
response to prices without the untenable perfect rationality assumption
(Skouras, Avlonitis, & Indounas, 2005). Borrowing theories from psychology,
marketing researchers have examined consumers’ perceptions of price, such as
price quality relationship, reference price concepts, price fairness, price knowl-
edge, memory, and numerical cognition (Monroe, 2011). These studies regard-
ing perceptions of price relate to a limited set of consumer reactions upon
encountering a specific price. The influence of economic theories of price has
been too strong to critically question what price is. Despite some effort in the
marketing discipline to explore how price impacts on consumer perceptions of
product quality, expensiveness, and fairness, the deeper meanings that it evokes
when consumers think of “price” have gone largely uninvestigated.
The objective of this research is to revisit the meaning of price to consumers
in general, as a part of their multifaceted lives, rather than being limited to only
the reactions they have after they encounter a price. We wish to gain insights
into the meanings of price for consumers, beyond the conventional ones that
economic functions have implicitly assumed in economics. The aim is, thus, to
explore the deeper meanings that price has for people as well as the conven-
tional meanings it carries. This is important for different reasons. One is to
have insights into the contemporary existence of humans for whom living in a
Price: Meanings and Significance 163
world of the market and, therefore, prices is an everyday experience. It is useful

to understand the meanings people associate with the prices of things, tangible
or intangible, that make up the social “life” they desire to live, meanings that
are highly likely to influence not only their orientations toward consumption in
particular, but also toward life in general. By providing deeper insights into
what price truly means to consumers, this study contributes to a more compre-
hensive understanding of the concept of price. Managerially, knowing the
meanings of price for consumers can guide marketers in envisioning pricing
strategies, as well as help them to better frame and communicate their prices to
consumers.
CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS AND RESPONSES TO PRICE

Economists and marketing researchers generally have different interpretations
of how consumers react to price information. Skouras et al. (2005) compared
and evaluated how economics and marketing disciplines differ in the treatment
of price. Economists assume that consumer behavior is rationally driven and
that consumers act to maximize their utility. Utility maximization is also con-
strained by factors such as income, purchasing power, inadequate information,
and search costs. Hence, economics focuses on consumer responses to prices as
an act of utility maximization under certain constraints. Within the economic
context, price is an indicator of monetary sacrifice and is given a negative role:
higher prices negatively affect purchase probabilities (Lichtenstein, Ridgway, &
Netemeyer, 1993). Consumer responses to price can be measured by the
concept of the demand curve, a negatively sloped relationship between the
quantity demanded of a good or service and the price of that good or service
(Leavitt, 1954).
“An understanding of buyer response to price depends on determining how
buyers perceive price” (Monroe, 1971, p. B519). Researchers in the marketing
discipline study price under the influence of theories from psychology and par-
ticularly from the perspective of perception. Marketing literature on pricing is
not bounded by the presumption of consumer rationality and utility maximiza-
tion. Skouras et al. (2005) reviewed pricing research in marketing and identified
six main theoretical approaches: price quality relationship (Bornemann &
Homburg, 2011; Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal, 1991; Rao & Monroe, 1989); price
perception in relative or absolute terms (Nagle & Hogan, 1995); digit effects
(Suri, Anderson, & Kotlov, 2004); reference price (Krishna, Briesch, Lehmann, &
Yuan, 2002; Simonson & Tversky, 1992); perceived gains versus losses in price
evaluation (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979); and assimilation and contrast effects on
perception of price differentials (Morris & Morris, 1990). A seventh approach is
consumer perception of price fairness rooted in theories such as equity theory, jus-
tice theory, and the principle of dual entitlement (Bolton, Warlop, & Alba, 2003;
Xia, Monroe, & Cox, 2004). It is easier for consumers to perceive unfairness when
they experience an inequitable price transaction, but it is comparatively difficult to
illustrate what “fairness perception” might be (Xia et al., 2004). Literature on
perceived fairness tends to focus largely on unfairness and the negative effect of
perceived unfairness on purchase intentions (Campbell, 1999).
The notion that consumers have perfect information and knowledge about
prices is often challenged by marketing scholars. Studies on price knowledge,
memory, and numerical cognition (Estelami, Lehmann, & Holden, 2001;
Monroe & Lee, 1999) reveal that consumers often inaccurately remember or
recall product prices. Consumers lack knowledge and capacity to fully process
pricing information (Skouras et al., 2005). Contrary to predictions in econom-

ics, consumers behave fairly irrationally in the marketplace and habitually
deviate from utility maximization.
Leavitt (1954) suggests that, in addition to the conventional economic
meaning of price, potential buyers may have varied interpretations of price
that warrant further research attention. Berkowitz and Walton (1980) mea-
sured what they considered to be varied responses to price including accept-
ability of the price, savings earned by the price, whether the price listed was a
good value for the money, willingness to buy, and the worth reflected by the
price, given different contexts and demographics. These responses represent
the scope of perceptions regarding price. Lichtenstein et al. (1993), identified
and developed scales to measure five constructs related to the negatively
valenced perceptions of price (i.e., value consciousness, price consciousness,
coupon proneness, sale proneness, and price mavenism) and two constructs
consistent with price perception in its positive role (price quality and prestige
sensitivity). The authors advocate further studies into the perceptions of price,
but not much has been accomplished since then in the way of exposing the
deeper meanings of price. Finally, Compeau, Lindsey-Mullikin, Grewal, and
Petty (2004) conducted in-depth interviews to investigate consumers’ percep-
tions of the meaning of several common reference price semantic cues in the
marketplace. The results show that consumers vary widely in their interpreta-
tions of common pricing semantic cues, such as manufactured suggested listed
price. Damay (2008) interviewed French children to explore how young chil-
dren define prices and expensiveness. He found that children are familiar with
prices and cognizant of what a price entails from an early age. He also identi-
fied distinct definitions of price across different age groups. These explora-
tions offer a glimpse of the diverse meanings of price. To the best of our
knowledge, research with an explicit focus on the meaning of price for adult
consumers is rare. Pricing research in marketing has largely focused on con-
sumer perceptions and their subsequent reactions upon exposure to a specific
price. The question of what price really means to consumers remains to be
answered.
METHOD AND ANALYSIS

Given the reviewed limitations of pricing literature, we suspect that there exist
meanings of price that have not yet been explored. Therefore, three focus group
sessions were organized, whose results were corroborated and augmented in-
depth using nine semi-structured interviews. Combining interviewing techniques
is supported by research that points out the shortcomings of focus groups as a
stand-alone technique (e.g., Fern, 1982). Focus groups provided useful initial
insights in two ways. First, they allowed the free-flow elicitation of the mean-
ings of price along with the chance to probe deeper. We found that promising
and unusual thoughts were expressed by participants. Second, focus groups

combine features from individual-level and group-level conversations and facili-
tate uniquely synergistic exploration of deeper thoughts and feelings (Parker &
Tritter, 2006). As focus groups outperform unmoderated groups in terms of the
total number of ideas generated (Fern, 1982), each focus group was moderated
by one of the authors. Each moderator took into account Fern’s (1982) cau-
tions that (a) participants may get caught up in the excitement and enjoyment
of the group experience and, hence, lose sight of the focal topic, and (b) warm-
up conversations may confuse participants and lead them to think that wander-
ing from the relevant topic area is acceptable.
Given the superiority of larger-size focus groups (Fern, 1982), each focus
group session consisted of nine distinct participants and lasted an average of
two hours (excluding the 10-minute break after the first hour). Participants
were students at a major university in the Southwest United States and ranged
in age between 21 and 29. One session had a mix of males and females. The
other two separated the sexes in case gender would make a difference in inter-
pretations of price. Of the three focus groups, one group consisted of students
who did not work, another of students who worked part-time, and the third
was composed of students who worked full-time. The goal was to eliminate any
dynamics stemming from being or not being an income earner (i.e., spending
self-earned vs. other-earned income). These decisions were in line with prior
research findings that consumer price perception or price sensitivity of a prod-
uct or service may be influenced by consumers’ demographic backgrounds,
such as gender or employment status. For example, Mazumdar and Papatla
(1995) found that male and female consumers respond differently to price and
sales promotion: (a) coupon usage is more prevalent among women, (b) men
are more likely to pay higher prices even though they are more price-elastic,
and (c) men have intrinsic preferences for high-priced brands. Relative to
women, men place lesser importance on product evaluative criteria such as
price (Williams, 2002). Moreover, families with high employment rates are
more responsive to price discount size, food price promotions, and private label
items than households with low employment rates (Gijsbrechts, Campo, &
Goossens, 2003). Across the focus groups, different probing questions were
used to start conversations, which were then navigated using different follow-
ups and probes. This is important especially when an explored concept (price,
in this case) has ready-made, common, conventional responses because of its
pervasiveness and presumed obviousness.
Focus groups produced a slate of categories and themes. These initial find-
ings were next expanded through one-on-one, in-depth interviews. The inter-
views were semi-structured. Even though the interviewer followed an interview
schedule containing a list of questions and topics that needed to be covered
during the conversation, s/he pursued topical trajectories in the conversation
that strayed from the guide as deemed appropriate (Rubin & Rubin, 2005).
Such interviews enable researchers to acquire a profound emic understanding

of the topic and capture the intricacy and richness of consumer emotional states
and cognitive processes (Rubin & Rubin, 2005). Interviewees were recruited
from among the research team’s social network. Four male and five female
interviewees ranged from 27 to 67 years old, with a median age of 39. The inter-
views differed from focus groups in that the former aimed to elicit nuanced and
detailed personal stories and dug deeper than the levels typically afforded by
focus groups. Following the hermeneutic approach (Arnold & Fischer, 1994),
we performed an iterative analysis by moving between the individual partici-
pant data and the formative understanding of the complete data set. As such,
the initial understandings were shaped, questioned, and adjusted to ultimately
reach a consistent framework.
FINDINGS
The findings produced two sets of meanings of price: conventional meanings
and deeper meanings. While the analytical emphasis was on meanings of price
that are beyond those routinely discussed in extant literature regarding the con-
ventional meanings of price, we did discover some deeper perceptions related to
these conventional meanings, which we present first.
Conventional Meanings of Price
The analysis corroborated the conventional meanings attributed to price in

extant literature including (1) the cost or sacrifice that people have to bear in
order to obtain something they desire, (2) the value or worth of the obtained
item, (3) the implied quality of what was considered to be purchased, (4) fair-
ness issues, and (5) the indications of how cheap or expensive something was.
Related to but reaching beyond the quality ramifications of price, there were
also hints to the broader image of the product, such as indications of status
and functionality that emanated from price. Within these meanings, we discov-
ered several nuances not articulated in prior research.
The meanings of price change according to specific circumstances that define
the purchase/consumption act. The effect of the multifaceted notion of context
on price comparisons and meanings has been acknowledged before (see, e.g.,
Berkowitz & Walton, 1980); however, they mostly refer to the context, specifi-
cally the purchase venue, or to elements that are related to the purchase venue.
Personal characteristics are also found to influence the meanings consumers
attribute to or derive from price as well as the extent to which price matters for
consumers.
One interesting finding yielded that despite its utmost significance in many
instances, in yet a considerable number of other instances price was a far less
significant factor. Price “does not matter” (a) when the purchase/consumption
act (and not the price) is the exclusive locus of attention and (b) in some of the
instances where the item is a necessity. First, when the consumer aims to treat a
loved one (e.g., take him or her out to dinner), price wanes in significance. The
focus is not on the cost, expense, or worth of what is being purchased, but
exclusively on the loved one being treated. Ashley (27, male) feels:
You’re not gonna compare prices [when] you’re taking your girlfriend out to eat. You go
wherever she wants and order whatever she wants. This is especially [important] in the early
stages of a relationship. So, I’d say price doesn’t mean anything in that context.
Under such circumstances, price loses significance because the purchase act
tells something about the worth of the loved one to the buyer rather than the
worth or quality of that which is purchased. As such, when an act is significant
because it represents the value attributed to oneself or a loved one, price does
not matter. Note that, normally, the consumer might not engage in the pur-
chase of that item without considering its price (i.e., assigning significance to
the price) or might even forgo purchasing it because of its price. Under special
circumstances, however, the purchase will take place without regard for the
price, and the item might very well be well over-priced. This is a strong indica-
tion that the meaning of price is not simply connected to an item that is pur-
chased, but simultaneously to other dimensions of the occasion within which a
price for an item purchased is paid. That is, linking price to a single item pur-
chased or studying price in just terms of the cost of an item is likely to produce
an incomplete understanding of price.
Second, in some of the instances where the item is a necessity, price may
become less or more significant. As such, necessities are a nuanced case in rela-
tion to price. In some contexts, price matters even more when what is being
purchased is a necessity. Consumers are more mindful of prices of necessities
because they will purchase them regularly. In other contexts, however, price
becomes insignificant because if the consumer needs to have something, he or
she will get it without much consideration of its price and fluctuations therein.
Viviana (22, female) shared:
Bread…you have to eat. Gas [price] has been going up for some time, but you still have to
fill up that big-o tank. Makeup…as important as bread. Without bread, you starve; without
makeup, you don’t leave your apartment. So no matter how much you pay, you still have to
get bread AND gas AND makeup AND so forth.
Another intriguing observation with regard to the conventional meanings of

price is the feeling that sometimes “the real or final” price will never be
unknown to the consumer. Roselyn (27, female) purchased a truck a few
months ago. Even though she knew her monthly payments, neither at the time
of our interview with her, nor at the time she signed the financing contract at
the dealership did she know how much exactly she would be paying for the
truck. Such experiences are attributable, at least partially, to marketer strategies

and actions and are typical of big-ticket items where sellers deliberately divert
consumer attention from the “net present value of proposed down and monthly
payments” to product benefits and add-on goods and services. Roselyn
remembers,
Once we picked our favorite color and model, which I now drive, they threw several offers at
us and I couldn’t really compare them [because] they were not comparable. One offer was a
5-year financing; the other was a 6-year [financing]; destination fee was higher in one of
them; another was at a different APR. Anyone who has dealt with auto dealers will know
what I mean. You act on one of the offers, but you don’t really know which offer was really
the best. You don’t even know how much you will end up paying even after signing the con-
tract. You might never figure that out. I haven’t, I swear. Every once in a while, when I’m
driving or am in bed, I review all of the payments to come up with a single number that
would show me how much I [will] have paid for the truck. Every time, I give up!
Deeper Meanings of Price
A sentiment shared by some of the participants pertains to the imposing weight

of the price of things on the consumer’s wallet. Estella (43, female) admits
“how ridiculous” she is for paying the prices she does for things she does not
really need (e.g., iPhone) and then having to forego getting other, more urgent
things (e.g., reading glasses). Estella’s statement resulted in a flurry of excited
discussion by others in the focus group session. The notion of “ridiculous” was
extended to the existence of certain prices, suggesting that some prices were
ridiculous and “mad.” By further extension, price means the feelings of guilt:
“When I see certain prices, I think guilt.” Price also means “regret” and “bitter-
ness”: “Why did I pay that much?”
Yet, paying a price that one shouldn’t pay can also mean “enjoyment”
because “you know you shouldn’t have paid that much but you did, so you are
enjoying yourself.” Relatedly, price also means “motivation” and “good life.”
The fact that things have prices means that there are money, prosperity, and
active lifestyles and that people can afford to pay those prices. So prices moti-
vate people to integrate those good things into their lives. “(If) price didn’t
exist, why would we study, why [would] we have a career?” Linking to the
meaning of motivation, price implies “you put more of yourself to find a job or
get an education, have a good life.”
In another context, price provoked the feeling of both having control and
having no control. When price means having control, participants felt prices
allow them to “stay within [their] means,” facilitating a discipline that is pre-
scribed by social forces and internalized and enacted at the individual level.
When price means lack of control, the individual feels as though he or she has
no choice or is not a chooser, developing a feeling of “choicelessness.”
Benjamin (25, male) thinks,
Price is both a good thing, in the sense that it helps people to have social values and a sense
of what is proper; it is also an imposition when controlling myself is not something that
I want, but something that I have to do. Like I work because I have to pay my bills … so
I just have to do it to pay prices for things… that’s life, I have to do it.
Price also means discrimination and exclusion. The existence of prices sug-
gests that there are things that are desirable by a large number of consumers
who will have to compete over owning the priced items. Thus, the fact that
items have prices serves as a boundary dividing owners those who can afford
it from non-owners those who are unable to afford it. In other words,
price means some consumers will not have the right to the product, with right
defined in economic/monetary terms. The sentiment that price means discrimi-
nation and exclusion in favor of the economically endowed groups emerged
when participants adopted a macro view of consumer life. Eric (23, male)
asserts,
I wish things were free but they can’t be. Sometimes we want things because [other] people
don’t have them. This is discrimination and I know of people who see the world this way.
Why can’t a needy step into a bakery and grab a loaf of bread without any worry? Why
should we organize charity the way we do and make money and price the medium of charity?
I guess people just don’t want to oppose it…They are just too busy living in the box.
Related to the latter notions, price was also interpreted as “a culture of scar-
city regulation.” In this sense, price is viewed as a defining agent behind and
within assemblages where various human and non-human entities determine
the constitution of life, at both the individual and the group level. What is
scarce is legitimized and enforced, regulated in the sense that things that would
be scarce for all are no longer scarce for some who can afford their prices but
absolutely scarce for those who cannot. Such acts are possible because assem-
blages of people and things and the dependencies among them can and do influ-
ence customs, norms, values, practices, technologies, and institutions, as well as
the relationships among them. As such, scarcity regulation for/through socio-
economic reasons/means serves as a foundational imperative of contemporary
society that informs the various elements of culture (i.e., customs, norms,
values, practices, technologies, and institutions) and gives purpose to and
orchestrates assemblages conducive to reproducing the imperative.
Price as a culture of scarcity regulation was associated with both positive

and negative feelings and experiences. In its positive sense, the existence of
prices will ensure that hoarding is contained and controlled, that commodities
will not run out before masses have access to it. Hence, how much of what will
go to which entity is regulated by price. In its negative sense, price not only reg-
ulates scarcity but also is rooted in, and reminds us of, scarcity. Consumers
want things for which they have to pay a price; they try to acquire them before
they run out. Inevitably, then, consumers know that things are scarce! Rafael
(24, male) shares,
If something was free, everybody would try to get as many units of that something that is
possible. Think of global warming and how fast the planet is running out of clean and cool
air just because it is free. So, thank God there are prices…Other times, I wish nothing would
run out. I wish humanity wouldn’t have to pay a price for every little thing in life.
A pattern characterizing focus group participants’ thoughts and feelings is

related to how price interferes with consumer desire for immediate ownership
over, access to, or usage of products, with “immediate” being the key word.
Participants’ narratives of their shopping experiences, especially those related
to big-ticket items such as automobiles and electronic devices, often sound as if
they were in extremely time-sensitive search for a solution to a pressing prob-
lem and the only (or at least a major) obstacle that stood between them and the
solution was the price.
In these narratives, interestingly, the economic meanings of price were
either forgotten altogether or taken very lightly in favor of alternative mean-
ings. Specifically, participants remembered how they were not concerned
whether the item was too expensive or whether they could afford it; the only
question in their mind was whether they could take it home right then. One of
the participants remembers how one of her uncles freely decided to purchase a
“definitely unaffordable car” they had seen at the first dealership they had
visited.
I guess my uncles were concerned about taking one home right then…’cause if they had con-
sidered the price or asked if they could afford it, they would have waited or considered other
cars…They never really thought anything like that [affordability]; they just showed up and
left with what they spontaneously fell in love with: a definitely unaffordable car.
Another participant remembered how he chose his truck: “They showed

me a couple of trucks but I really wanted to test drive the one I was told I
wouldn’t qualify for…I made sure I drove away in THAT truck!” This last
quote is quite telling of the contrast between affordability and obtainability as
if driving away in the desired truck is “worth” tens of thousands of dollars
difference in price, as if reaching far beyond one’s affordability threshold is
an affirmative sign of socioeconomic status in and of itself. Participants who
interpreted price as such desired unaffordable products because obtaining
them could compensate for their underprivileged socioeconomic status. For
the privileged, on the other hand, obtaining highly expensive products would
showcase superior socioeconomic status. For such signaling and negotiations
of socioeconomic status to operate effectively, both groups of consumers need
to understand that, at least sometimes, it is not the product per se but the
price the consumer must have paid for it that matters. This is indicated con-
notatively in Ashley’s (27, male) narrative about the meaning of price when
he takes his girlfriend out to dinner:
I’d say price doesn’t mean anything in that context…and even if it does, it’s definitely not in
a monetary sense…A dinner for two that costs more than $150 is not necessarily the most
tasteful or healthiest food; it doesn’t even guarantee that my girlfriend would particularly
enjoy eating it. The thing that I hope she will appreciate is the fact that I am willing to spend
hard-earned money so she knows how much I care for her…I’m sure it comes up later in her
conversations with her (girl)friends when they gossip about guys.
Price also means “to have, as opposed to HAVE-have.” The semantic effect
of HAVE-have as a contrastive reduplication “is to focus the denotation of the
reduplicated element on a more sharply delimited, more specialized, range”
(Ghomeshi, Jackendoff, Rosen, & Russell, 2004, p. 308). As such, HAVE-have,
a slightly sarcastic use as demonstrated in shows like The Big Bang Theory,
denotes the state of having paid for and obtained something, as opposed to
“have,” which stops at knowing the price and resting assured that one could
potentially obtain the product if one desired so. Viviana (22, female) differenti-
ates between “to have” (i.e., having by just knowing the price) and “to HAVE-
have” (i.e., paying the price and taking the product home), alluding to the
possible multiplicity of consumer feelings of ownership and access. She states,
Yes, knowing the price [of something] feels to me like having [that] something. Like, the
other day, my girlfriend sent me a picture of a genuine leather jacket that looked real expen-
sive. I scrolled down and saw the price. I felt no need to buy; I felt I already had it because
the price was right…Of course, there are things I know I won’t ever have, like a Tesla or a
Maserati. With everything else, if I know the price, I feel I already have it even though I
don’t HAVE-have it…This is more than knowing I can afford it. I literally feel I own things
that I like in stores. This feeling actually helps me not run and buy everything I see and like.
Finally, price was understood in connection to the idiom “pay a/the price”
defined as suffering the consequences for doing or risking something. When
this negatively charged idiom contaminates consumer consciousness, price is no
longer perceived simply as a resource the consumer gives up to receive a desired
product. Rather, the existence of price feels like a punishment, a consequence
of giving in to temptations. Kate (67, female) says,
Because price can have so many different meanings than just cost, it also represents some
kind of non-concrete effect that will cost you if you do something, like the price you pay for
not behaving yourself or something like that…It means that it’s a negative, it’s a negative
connotation that you pay a price for something… it’s negative, it’s a negative value in your
life… it means I made a mistake.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Price has conventionally been defined as an indicator of sacrifice and of quality
in the economics and marketing disciplines. Studies explicitly discussing the
actual meanings of price are rare. The present study answers the calls of mar-
keting scholars for research on varied consumer interpretations of “price”
(Berkowitz & Walton, 1980; Leavitt, 1954).
Based on preliminary explorations into the meanings of price, our findings
suggest that so far we have considered a very restricted set of meanings that
consumers may attribute to price under various circumstances. Specifically,
considerations of price have been limited to the conventional meanings that

price indicates about the product, whether it is cheap or expensive, requires
much or little sacrifice, is of high or low quality, worth the amount it has on
the price-tag, and fair or unfair. Our preliminary explorations using focus
groups and in-depth interviews provide some deeper meanings of price for con-
sumers in terms of how they perceive themselves and/or their lives in the socio-
economic order that they inhabit. The notion of price is multifaceted. In
addition to the conventional meanings of price, price is linked to consumers’
self-perceptions, feelings of regret and enjoyment, “good life” and consumer
motivation, regulation of scarcity, feelings of (lack of) control, discrimination
and exclusion, the multiplicity of feelings of ownership and access, and most
importantly, the interpretations of obtainability and affordability.
Our findings reveal that price, under certain circumstances, is an issue of
obtainability rather than affordability: the consumer is preoccupied with an
immediate ownership over, access to, or usage of the desired product rather
than worried about the price (down payment and subsequent payments), even
though one cannot usually take a product home without first making the
requested down payment. To the best of our knowledge, price as a question or
indicator of the consumer’s ability to immediately own and use a product (i.e.,
price as obtainability) has not been explored in previous research.
Several factors emerged as contributing to the prevalence of obtainability
instead of affordability across various purchase decisions. While some factors
are internal to the consumer, other factors are part of the socioeconomic reali-
ties of the marketplace. First, the relatively generous credit that the American
financial system extends to the (qualified) individuals tends to relieve the fears
of affordability in favor of the pleasures of obtainability. In short, consumer
credit enhances the individual’s optimism regarding his/her ability to success-
fully fulfill his or her financial obligations, which in turn relegates questions of
affordability and focuses him or her on the celebratory aspect of economic
transactions: ownership and usage. Second, interestingly, our focus group parti-
cipants raised issues of self-worth and cast these against the prices of products.
For example, when “someone is turning eighteen, everyone says you now
deserve driving a car…the next thing is you’re driving a car that is way out of
your league.” This feeling of entitlement compels the consumer to “skip the
affordability check and dive right into taking it home.”
As a result of its multifaceted nature, “price” needs to be studied and
analyzed from several aspects. The present study shows that price goes beyond
the conventional economic meaning and informs and influences consumer
self-perceptions, scarcity, motivation, and the contrary interpretations of
obtainability and affordability. By exploring the deeper meanings of “price,”
we contribute to a broad and comprehensive understanding of the concept of
price in the pricing literature. Managerially, exploring the meanings of price
further could yield productive results. As the implications of price regarding
how consumers feel about themselves are revealed, pricing strategies that yield
greater satisfaction for the consumers can be discovered and implemented.
A more difficult marketing task is to engage the meanings that price has
regarding the socioeconomic order. Yet, for the marketing institution as a
whole to serve society better, the meanings of price related to regulation of
scarcity, motivation, and social values are necessary to understand at length.
Another fruitful avenue for research is to examine the relationship between
affordability and obtainability. Our participants were either concerned with
affordability and altogether blind to the magnitude of price or, instead, focused
on the possibility of owning and using the product immediately. However, it
seems reasonable to expect these two notions to coexist across a variety of con-
sumer decision situations. Moreover, consumers who were focused on obtain-
ability of products portrayed feelings of entitlement and often lacked in
motivation or ability to calculate the total price of products. These findings
have significant marketing and public policy implications. We recommend that
these avenues for research be pursued, first through the use of more exploratory
methods and then through experimental designs once some distinct relation-
ships between meanings of price and consumer behaviors are discovered.
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Qualitative Consumer Research Price: Meanings and Significance

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Price: Meanings and Significance

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Mohammadali Zolfagharian, Fei L. Weisstein and

Purpose Price has conventionally been viewed as an indicator of either

Qualitative Consumer Research

What is price? When is it significant? A most interesting current fact about

world of the market and, therefore, prices is an everyday experience. It is useful

CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS AND RESPONSES TO PRICE

pricing information (Skouras et al., 2005). Contrary to predictions in econom-

METHOD AND ANALYSIS

and unusual thoughts were expressed by participants. Second, focus groups

Such interviews enable researchers to acquire a profound emic understanding

Conventional Meanings of Price

The analysis corroborated the conventional meanings attributed to price in

Another intriguing observation with regard to the conventional meanings of

truck. Such experiences are attributable, at least partially, to marketer strategies

Deeper Meanings of Price

A sentiment shared by some of the participants pertains to the imposing weight

Price as a culture of scarcity regulation was associated with both positive

A pattern characterizing focus group participants’ thoughts and feelings is

Another participant remembered how he chose his truck: “They showed

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

considerations of price have been limited to the conventional meanings that

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